


The Spy and His Soldier

by damnspacebois (Race_Jackson23)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Keith is Black Widow, Lance is Hawkeye, M/M, Sheith MCU AU, Shiro is the Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-13 20:38:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16899492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Race_Jackson23/pseuds/damnspacebois
Summary: It’s not until years after Keith puts the Red Room behind him that he realises he’ll never be free of it.au where keith is black widow and shiro the mysterious winter soldier who trained him that keith thought long dead





	The Spy and His Soldier

It’s not until years after Keith puts the Red Room behind him that he realises he’ll never be free of it.

Not that he ever expected to be. Memories the Room gave him are etched into his very soul, a cacophony of pleading screams and bloodied hands that he experiences every night as if for the first time. He can feel the crack of necks underneath his hands, can smell the pervasive scent of brains blown out by his gun, can taste the blood that spurts into his mouth accidentally after his knife hits the wrong angle. And the skills the Room gave him, too, will never leave him, nor will he ever get peace from them; he’s too dangerous to leave alone but his skills make him useful enough to keep around.

But really, that’s not the point. It is not that he expected to ever forget the Room, or get past the trauma of it. The kind of things that happened are not the things you overcome, period, even with therapists and drugs and whatever else they try to shove on him before he snaps back and they leave him alone. No, it’s not that he thought he’d forget; it’s that he thought he was actually free of them fucking with his life.

For a person in his shoes, it is truly a stupid thought. He knows them. He knows how far their influence extended before he started burning through it with assassination after assassination. He knows that if any organisation could survive the slaughter he rained down upon them, it was the Red Room. After all, _they_ trained _him_.

Or rather, _he_ trained him. _Takashi_. The man with the metal arm that had just put a bullet through his abdomen and left him confined to a hospital bed in Odessa. The Winter Soldier.

And that was the crux of it, really. That was the thing that meant the Room was still screwing around with his life when he thought he’d buried them so deep the corpses would never see the light of day. Because while Keith was as free as a former Russian assassin living in the United States could be, Takashi was still _theirs_.

“Keith,” came a voice softer than it had any right to be from the door. Broken from his distractions, he looks up in time to catch the surprise on Lance’s face before the archer hides it behind a grin. “Buddy! You’re up! How you feeling?”

“Like I’ve been shot,” Keith deadpans. He’s not sure if it’s the drugs or relief at seeing Lance alive after the whole ordeal, but there’s something warm in his chest even as he schools his face into an expressionless mask. “The engineer?”

Lance’s expression soured.

“Dead,” he said shortly. “Same bullet that took you out got him too. Whoever they sent after you both was _good_.”

Oh, Keith knows. Even through the haze of his memories about the Winter Soldier, he knows just how effective the man was – _is_ , apparently – at killing people. One bullet for two marks is child’s play considering some of the more creative executions they’d managed together. If anything, he’s surprised he’s still alive and not six feet under, but judging by the look on Lance’s face, it was a near thing.

Or perhaps not. If Keith had been close enough to make out the outline of the Soldier, then Takashi was close enough to see that it was him, and certainly close enough to take a shot that would kill him. The fact that Keith was still breathing after that? Well, that was really something.

“Whoever he was, he wasn’t working alone, either,” Lance continues, seemingly oblivious to Keith’s distraction. “We got hit by a team at the Potemkin Stairs and by then, the op was a bust and we were getting chatter about you going down. Had to retreat.”

Retreat was a smart move, especially when the Winter Soldier was involved. Hesitating to kill Keith or not, the man wasn’t one to be trifled with.

Keith is hyperaware of that. It makes his plans just that much more insane.

He clears his throat and Lance quietens instantly. That, more than anything, makes his chest ache uncomfortably, because Lance is a chatterer even at the worst of times. Him going quiet is almost unheard of, so Keith knows just how shaken he is when he zips it and listens to what Keith has to say. Even when what Keith’s going to say is completely crazy.

“I need to go after the shooter.”

If Lance’s eyebrows shot up any more, they would fly off his face in surprise.

“You _what_?” he squeaks. “Go after him? Are you insane? He tried to kill you!”

“Maybe,” Keith shrugs. “Maybe not.”

“You have a literal bullet hole in your side courtesy of that psycho, don’t you dare try to tell me he didn’t try to kill you,” hisses Lance, gesturing wildly at the hospital bed.

Keith arches an eyebrow. “If he wanted me dead, I’d be dead. I didn’t even realise he was there until a split second before he took the shot, and trust me: he doesn’t miss.”

“All the more reason to avoid him then!” says Lance. “If he doesn’t want you dead now, he will when he finds out you’re going after him and then BAM! You’ll be dead!”

Keith is quiet for a moment, but it’s not because he agrees with Lance. He doesn’t _disagree_ with him either, per se, because he’s not an idiot and being hunted down and murdered is an entirely probable outcome of poking at the Winter Soldier. At the same time, though, there’s a little voice at the back of his head, quiet but solid, that whispers an insane plan; that maybe, just maybe, he can get to the Soldier, catch him off guard, and turn him. it’s insane because Lance’s right but it’s also insane because it could work. Because Takashi was close, so close, and he should have taken him out but he _didn’t_ , and it could have been his orders but it also could have been _him_.

And if that’s a possibility, if there’s even a chance that opportunity exists, Keith has to take it.

“Lance,” Keith says, reaching out and squeezing his partner’s – his best friend’s – hands. The raggedy-rough of his fingers is comforting, grounding, and Keith is reminded of how many years they’ve worked together, of the trust they’ve built through blood and sweat and tears. “Lance, this is so much bigger than you think. _So much_.”

“Then tell me,” Lance all but begs, a testament to their trust. “Don’t shut me out on this.”

So Keith tells him.

~~~

_“Again.”_

Grunt-SMACK!

_“Again.”_

THWACK!

_“You’re not trying hard enough. A break, and then again.”_

_With a grunt, Keith collapsed to the ground. A shaky hand wiped at the sweat beaded on his forehead, the dark fabric of his gloves coming away damp before flopping to the floor. His whole body_ ached _. Being tired was a concept he was intimately aware of after so long with the Room, but he was also aware of his limits, of how much he could push through without needing rest, and he’d hit that point ten minutes earlier._

_His instructor knew it too. To any other, his scarred face would have appeared impassive, unmoving; a mask as cold as the Siberian winter they trained in. But Keith, whose life had depended at times on the most minute of those facial expressions, knew better. Their years of working together, of training and fighting and killing, had forged between them a unique bond. One glance was all Keith needed to know that he was worried._

_“Graduation is coming up,” said Takashi, as if he were discussing something as inane as the weather rather than a fight to the death that he thought Keith was underprepared for. He settled down next to Keith’s spot on the floor, crossing his legs with a grace unnatural to his size. “Acxa will not be easy to beat.”_

_“I know,” was all Keith said, and though the worry lingered in the air, nothing more passed between them._

~~

Odessa might be when he finds out Takashi didn’t burn with the rest of the Room, but that is all it is.

Rather than the opportunity Keith sees, the sign, he finds himself at a loss. At first he pulls on his engineer link, hoping that if he tugs enough on that string the whole tapestry will unravel, but instead he finds himself with a lapful of yarn and no loose ends. Whoever holds the leash is efficient, clean. There’s no way to track movements, nor is there any patterns with a killer like the Soldier, so that angle’s a bust, though it is a full year before he can admit his lead is dead in the water and his investigation with it.

Lance is good about it. He helps where he can with Keith’s little side project, chasing up other leads and finding ways to get their missions cleared with Kolivan, though he has no qualms letting him know he disapproves. For all his disapproval, it stays between them, as Keith knew it would, and while Keith knows he’s relieved when he drops it, the concern is also there.

Soon though, they have no time to waste on the ghosts of Keith’s past. The world gets stranger and stranger, which, for a pair of assassins working for a secret agency dealing in the wild and unexplainable, says a lot. Gods touch down, green giants fight on the streets of Harlem, men in metal suits rain vengeance down upon the world’s enemies. If someone had told Keith the year before that such things would happen, he would have asked them if they were kidding then kick the jerk to the curb. It is, simply put, unbelievable.

And yet – _and yet_ – it happens. The world changes and while even years later he’s not sure if it’s for the better, he hasn’t the choice but to adapt to it. The younger agents, like the Hawkeyes and Keith, take it in stride. All of BLADE does, even set-in-his-ways Kolivan and his stoic second, Krolia, though just that bit slower than others as leadership is wont.

Then they find Matthew Holt and the world changes just that bit more.

~

Captain America, as he used to be called, or Matt, as he wants to be, is frozen when they find him, yet somehow alive. That fact is particularly helpful when aliens touch down around them, as is the existence of Iron Man and the giant Hulk. Talking to the man afterwards on behalf of Kolivan, it’s clear that his appearance is also a boon to BLADE and their operations, something Keith is keen to be involved in. They are soon put on missions together, and that’s when it happens.

Kolivan is fatally shot.

It’s sudden. Unexpected, even in their dangerous profession. Holt is the last one to speak to the man, Keith knows, and while he insists nothing passed between them, it’s clear something had. Not that Holt would tell him, especially since their last mission together ran so disastrously that Keith ends up accused by the good Captain of endangering it. The thought is vaguely annoying to him as they stand together and watch surgeons try to piece Kolivan back together, because Keith was just following orders, and those of the man on that table no less.

Krolia appears. Kolivan’s second-in-command stares silently through the observation window, the hard line of her mouth almost twitching with some sort of emotion Keith has never seen on her face. That, more than anything, more than Lance being unreachable, leaves Keith worried, because Krolia is never anything less than control. Then she opens her mouth.

“Ballistics came back,” she says, “three slugs, no rifling. Soviet-made.”

And as the monitors in the OR go crazy, Keith’s world narrows to one thing.

Takashi.

**Author's Note:**

> come chat to me on tumblr where i'm [damnspacebois](https://damnspacebois.tumblr.com) or even on twitter where my handle is @dyinglawstudent


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